Over the course of the last few weeks I've had about a dozen conversations with people about Twitter. People's feelings range from gushing love of the 140 character medium, to disdain for the narcissistic tweeters among the digerati who simply won't shut up.
I don't have any particular beef myself with Twitter, and I'm as jacked in, connected, and narcissistic as the next guy. But much of the conversation about Twitter is incestuous and "insider-ish." There's a bit of haughty staring down the nose at the unwashed masses who aren't tweeting -- as if those who don't tweet are simply showing that they have nothing to say.
And of course this week, discussing the denial-of-service attacks against Twitter has been all the rage. Which is to say that when you don't have a vehicle to talk about nothing -- or should I say, to tweet and re-tweet the nothing that is being tweeted -- folks are tweeting about not being able to tweet.
A lot has been said about the power of micro-communi-blogging, or whatever category of the week that Twitter sits within. And as a communications tool, while I personally find it unwieldy and a bit untargeted, I'm nothing but respectful of those who get value out of Twitter. Shelly Palmer, for instance, is full of ways he's gathering value out of Twitter. He said recently that by simply tweeting that he was thinking about dinner, he immediately had a readymade dinner party without having to make a single phone call or send a single email. Or should I have said, rt: @shelly_palmer?
More power to folks who find this to be a powerful medium for communications. But have you noticed that, for the most part, the people who are "power-tweeters" are either professional writers, or are using Twitter for personal PR?
Here are the reasons the buzz surrounding Twitter is a lot of hype.
1. Twitter is a recursive conversation among individuals who are promoting their own careers.
Not participating doesn't hurt you. In some ways, it will help you if the folks you're trying to impress are not part of the twit-clique. There's nothing like mutually being on the outside to solidify a relationship with an interviewer or potential client than showing your anti-Twitter camaraderie. Because goodness knows that anyone who has chosen not to tweet at this point is resentful and annoyed by all the Twitter hype. And if you're not an idiot, you'll have already made certain that the person you're meeting with is not an avid tweeter -- because, well, that's quite an easy thing to verify. And for the small part of the population that is hooked on the newest form of crackberry, stroking their ego is as easy as "following" them.
2. Signing up to follow someone on Twitter is easy and painless (especially if you never check your account).
Twitter is mostly about making the folks who are tweeting feel important and loved. Not to say that I don't love them all already. But if all I need to do is simply sign up to follow them on Twitter, what a marvelously easy thing it is to make them feel better about themselves. And of course, when someone looks me up and sees that I'm following the "who's who" of the online advertising digerati, I look both connected and very important. Oh, and I am, baby, I am -- it's how I roll.
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